Department of Energy March 7, 2022 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Energy Policy and Conservation Act, as amended (EPCA), prescribes energy conservation standards for various consumer products and certain commercial and industrial equipment, including small, large, and very large commercial package air conditioning and heating equipment, of which computer room air conditioners (CRACs) are a category. EPCA requires the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or the Department) to consider the need for amended standards each time the relevant industry standard is amended with respect to the standard levels or design requirements applicable to that equipment, or periodically under a six-year-lookback review provision. In this document, DOE is proposing amended energy conservation standards for CRACs that rely on a new efficiency metric and are equivalent to those levels specified in the industry standard. DOE has preliminarily determined that it lacks the clear and convincing evidence required by the statute to adopt standards more stringent than the levels specified in the industry standard. This document also announces a public meeting webinar to receive comment on these proposed standards and associated analyses and results.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is issuing this Amended Record of Decision (AROD) to amend its previous AROD for the long-term management and storage of elemental mercury published in the Federal Register on October 6, 2020. This AROD withdraws the decision to store at Waste Control Specialists (WCS) certain elemental mercury to which DOE accepts the conveyance of title pursuant to a legal settlement or proceeding.

In this notice, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is forecasting the representative average unit costs of five residential energy sources for the year 2022 pursuant to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (Act). The five sources are electricity, natural gas, No. 2 heating oil, propane, and kerosene.